Environmental Reform Via Sledgehammer : GOP’s anti-regulation package in the House goes too far

The U.S Senate now faces the unenviable task of cleaning up the mess left by the House of Representatives in the name of regulatory reform. With haste bordering on recklessness, the lower chamber has approved a series of measures that could, if accepted by the Senate and signed by the President, cripple the federal government’s ability to enforce environmental regulations. The House also voted to freeze all new regulations issued between last Nov. 20 and the end of this year.

There is so much that is useful in these GOP-inspired efforts that it is a pity the Republicans are botching things. Clearly many environmental rules are overdrawn and too costly and cumbersome, needlessly damaging the economy and burdening businesses large and small. A thorough rethinking of environmental regulations is long overdue. Unfortunately, the package--now rolled into one bill--brings a sledgehammer to a task that requires intelligence and sophistication. And, strangely, given Republican antipathy to big government, it could well create huge new bureaucracies to implement complex new procedures and thus could swell the federal deficit.

POLITICAL QUAGMIRE: The GOP approach does not repeal environmental laws but shackles them in such awkward procedures that their enforcement could be problematical. Agencies would be required to conduct complex cost-benefit analyses of proposed rules and subject them to scrutiny by peer-review panels. Such risk assessment is not a bad concept, but this science is very inexact and the legislation is so vaguely worded that rule-making would be certain to become embroiled in divisive politics.

Even more troubling is Title IX, aimed at regulatory “takings” of private property. This would compel the federal government to compensate property owners “for any reduction in the value of property,” including not only land but water rights, if a regulatory action caused a drop in value of 20% or more.

Some property owners have indeed experienced unfair treatment and deserve relief. But the bill is so poorly crafted that it appears to require the federal government to compensate polluters ordered to comply with clean air and water laws, and could jeopardize the recent agreement to funnel more fresh water to revive the environmentally devastated Sacramento Delta and San Francisco Bay. In a letter, 15 “fiscally conservative” House Republicans voiced concern that the takings provision would create a huge new entitlement program of unknown cost to the government.

Leading environmental groups claim the bill would gut the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Air Act, wetlands protection and other laws. One does not have to accept the sky-is-falling cries of environmentalists to see the folly. The Republicans have tapped into a genuine public concern about overzealous regulators, but if they are not saved by moderate Republicans in the Senate, they may be planting environmental time bombs that will later explode in their faces. BIG GAINS AT RISK: The legislation could undermine the quality of the nation’s air and water, upsetting 25 years of laws meant to reverse well-documented environmental degradation and alter the balance of private property rights versus the commonweal. The bill is yet to gain much public scrutiny and has not been subjected to thorough scientific, legal and fiscal analysis.

This rush to regulatory judgment is unseemly. One assumes many Republicans and Democrats voted for the legislation for political reasons and secretly hope the Senate will save them. The bill’s fate in the less-impetuous Senate is uncertain, and President Clinton has hinted he would veto it. The conservative Republicans behind this effort need some help from their more moderate colleagues, lest they ride their ideological chariot right over a cliff.